Ethan scoffed—then realized a moment too late that his uncle was serious. “Cool,” he amended, shoving his hands into the pockets of his chinos. Uncle Robert eyed him carefully.
“Nothing fancy here,” he went on. “Menu’s only got a few items, and since you have the morning shift, you don’t need to worry about closing down. You’ll be okay?”
“Yes, sir.” Ethan nodded. It seemed that conversations with his uncle shrank his vocabulary down to just those two words. He didn’t have the voice to mention that back home he had worked at the local Steak ’n Shake for half a year. He wasn’t sure if anyone in this town had ever even seen a Steak ’n Shake.
“Listen, I wasn’t planning on this.” Uncle Robert looked uncomfortable as he ran a hand over his stiff hair. “But your dad didn’t want you lazing around all summer, and the boy who worked here last summer, ah—well, he’s gone now.”
Of course, Ethan thought, seething. As if being sent to this place wasn’t enough.
“Anyway,” Uncle Robert went on. “Let me give you a tour of the place.”
As it turned out, the place wasn’t much—just the main shop plus a small kitchen in the back, behind a set of metal doors. Tuesday was burger day, Ethan learned, and the only time the rusting old stove ever got put to use. The rest of the time, sodas and milk shakes were the only items on the list.
“Real variety,” Ethan muttered, glancing over the laminated menu. Uncle Robert, thankfully, didn’t hear.
Ethan learned how to operate the soda machine—how to blend ice cream into a milk shake the right way—and where, exactly, to kick the jukebox in case it stopped in the middle of a song. All of this instruction was given in Uncle Robert’s curt tone, and all without a single heartbeat of eye contact. Ethan gave his understanding in halfhearted nods, all the while eagerly awaiting the moment when Uncle Robert would leave, and he would finally be alone.
At a quarter to nine, Uncle Robert completed his tour back in the main area. Ethan looked out of the rectangle of glass on the door and didn’t see a single soul on the street.
“Well, then,” Uncle Robert said, fixing the collar of his shirt. He coughed into his fist. “Do you understand?”
Ethan nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want any slipups.”
Hollowly, Ethan recited the same response.
“Good. Good.” Uncle Robert adjusted his pants and looked at the mirror above the counter, then at the song list next to the jukebox—anywhere but at his nephew. “In that case,” Uncle Robert continued. “I’ll leave you to it. There’s a telephone in the back if there’s an emergency. Try not to call.”
“Yeah,” Ethan mumbled. “No sweat.”
Uncle Robert nodded quickly, his receding hairline catching the light. “I’ll be back in a few hours,” he said, leaving as if he couldn’t get out quickly enough.
Once his uncle had disappeared down the lone cross street of downtown, Ethan stood in the center of the malt shop, taking everything in. It was slightly cooler in here than it was outside, but every move Ethan made still felt like he was swimming through the air. It hung; it lingered; it sat on his shoulders and buried his feet in the checkered linoleum. He felt heavier in this place.
Sighing, he forced his leaden feet to march behind the counter, snagging a squeaky vinyl stool on the way. Once he was situated, positioned conveniently behind the cash register, he looked both ways, licked his lips, and lifted up his shirt.
Tucked into the waistband of his pants were the two latest issues of Strange Suspense Stories. He had read them about a dozen times each already, of course, but they had been the first of the stack he had smuggled into his suitcase.
Pulling the comics carefully out, Ethan placed them on his lap. He flipped the top one carefully to the first panel, so as not to wrinkle the pages. His uncle probably would not have approved of this, reading comics while on duty. If he noticed, of course. Which he hadn’t that morning, when, at the breakfast table, Ethan made it through the first edition of Outlaw Kid—twice. He’d absently stirred his oatmeal as his aunt spoke loudly about their neighbor down the road, her voice expanding as if she wanted it to crawl up the walls and nestle into every corner of the woodwork. He wondered if she knew how terrified she sounded.
The minutes ticked by like years, and not a single customer walked through the door. For four hours Ethan read and reread the comics, stared at the wall, and dug some spare change from his pockets to play a few songs on the jukebox. Most of the options were Elvis. He hated Elvis.
By the time one o’clock rolled around, Ethan was thinking that in all his fourteen years of life, he had never been so incredibly bored. “This is such a drag,” he announced to no one. He felt energy building up inside of him, trapped between these four white walls, and he had to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep himself from leaping to his feet and bolting out the door.
Instead, in a grueling display of self-control, he ran a hand over the soft curls of his cropped, dark hair and swiveled back and forth on the stool, knocking his knees against the counter.
Uncle Robert strolled in just past one o’clock, and Ethan heaved a sigh of relief.
“How was it?” he asked as Ethan rushed to shove the comics back up his shirt.
“All right. Empty.”
“Usually is, in the morning.” Uncle Robert grunted as he circled around the counter, a guttural sound that made Ethan shudder. “Summer, so most kids are sleeping late. They’ll be streaming in about half an hour from now.”
Ethan frowned. As much as he abhorred the idea of spending his already abysmal summer stuck in a crowded busboy job, he wondered why his uncle wouldn’t stick him in the busier shift for the extra hands. “You sure you don’t want me to stay through the crowds?” he asked. “I could help out, if you need it.”
Uncle Robert paused with his hand on the back door, his head perking up in what seemed to be genuine surprise. “No,” he assured Ethan, shaking his head slowly. “That’s all right, I can handle it. In fact, you should probably head on home. Cara’s got lunch waiting for you, and it’ll get cold if you don’t hurry.”
Relief and confusion mingled in Ethan’s mind as he stood, brushing invisible dust from his slacks. “All right,” he mumbled awkwardly. “See you back home, Uncle Robert.”
From the corner of his eye, Ethan saw the man flinch at the title. He lowered his head and quickened his pace out the door.
Outside, it seemed that the town had finally come alive. Or at least, as alive as was humanly possible in a town with barely more than a few hundred people. Unlike the morning, there were a few people milling about in the streets: two women in floppy sun hats arched out of their seats at the restaurant down the street, their rosy lips in full sprint; across the street, in front of the general store, two little boys turned a jump rope for a little girl in a pink dress; inside, a few slow-moving figures pulled items from sagging wooden shelves.